Tech

Sunday, 13 November 2011

Less than two weeks after the battery life issue was first reported, Apple has released its announced iOS 5.0.1 update to fix it, as well as bring other bug fixes and improvements to the platform. A large portion of the most recent user reports on the Apple support forums however, claim that the update does not actually fix the battery life problem for them, and in some cases, makes it worse. Apple has yet to respond to these reports.

As announced last week, the iOS 5.0.1 update will bring various other changes to the platform, such as new multitasking gestures for the iPad 1, various security improvements, bugs fixes for FreeType, bug fixes for iCloud documents, and enhanced voice recognition for Australian users. Also notable, is the fix for a major security issue that had allowed hackers to develop rogue apps for iOS devices. The iOS 5.0.1 update was the first update to roll-out over-the-air (reportedly less than 50MB), though it can also be downloaded via iTunes (reportedly nearly 790MB).

Pointed out by established security researcher Charles Miller (a four-time winner of the Pwn2Own hacking contest), the issue was that Apple’s App Store’s code signing could be bypassed by developers, spreading malware onto users’ devices without their knowledge. Miller proved the existence of the bug by developing an iOS app that Apple approved and distributed, an app that forced the device to phone a controlled server, which could then issue various commands on devices running iOS 4.3 or higher.